The train was coming.
And the protective charm in my hand — I didn’t know how long it would last.
All of it pointed to one thing.
Faster!
Get down the stairs to the platform, right now.
“This way!”
Deputy Lee Seonghae, with the sharpest sense of direction, bolted almost animal-like, retracing the way we had come.
I had been mapping it in my head as well, and surely everyone else had been trying to remember it the same way, so none of us hesitated or got lost — we just ran after him.
Breathing.
Footsteps.
...And in the distance, the rumble of the oncoming train.
In an instant the path drew nearer, the sounds of us tearing through trees and fog echoing in the silence.
And at last the stairs came into view. A clear, open space free of fog. The way that would send us elsewhere—
Exit [■]
The stairs leading upward.
“......”
“......”
I reflexively looked up. Before the shutter, a mad barricade of piled-up junk. Dried bloodstained footprints. Desperate attempts to block any connection to the outside world.
The stairs leading out into Segwang Special City.
Wait.
Wait a second.
Why?
And then it hit me like a blow to the head.
“Etiquette...!”
“...!!”
Segwang Station (Forest of Dying) Etiquette
Right after we scanned our tickets at the gates, we ran.
That was why we arrived at an “exit.”
My heart went cold.
Why did none of us remember?
Not one of us in this group had noticed it — impossible.
And then I realized. Even now, remembering it in shock...
It’s slipping out of my head.
Like fog seeping in.
A gimmick.
The notices on the board — they couldn’t stay in memory long. But there was no time to despair over that.
Hurry.
We had to go back...!
“Cheongdong, reorient us!”
“Yes.”
Wait. I quickly added:
“Agent, don’t look at the exit.”
We couldn’t know what we might see.
“...! Yes.”
I checked that Agent Cheongdong, holding the stained-glass pane, nodded without raising his head. Then I frantically checked the item in my hand.
...Half of the protective carving was covered in black mold.
The silk threads were rotting.
...It’s accelerating.
Heading to the wrong exit had clearly worsened it.
At this rate, what time remained... maybe only five to ten minutes.
Hurry.
“Found it! The gates...!”
“Okay. This time, don’t run.”
We moved.
Careful steps, making sure both feet never left the ground at once. Not running, not triggering the judgment. With extreme focus and tension, we retraced our way to the gates.
Found the transit card machines.
The protective pollock was almost entirely swallowed in black-purple mold.
Step by step, we retraced our path from the machines.
The silk tied to my ring finger snapped.
The fog thickened around the path, muddling it further....
Drop.
Cold sweat splashed onto the charm.
Now it was almost unrecognizable.
Half the threads around my fingers had snapped.
Hurry.
Not being able to run was torture.
Part of me wanted to — maybe it’d be fine now — but after being caught once, I couldn’t risk breaking the rule again.
So I walked.
I walked.
And then.
And then—
The stairs.
The way down to the platform.
“...!!”
We plunged down the steps, unable to even breathe. I gripped the remaining threads tied to the pollock with all my strength, stepping down.
And then.
And then—
Out of the fog.
“......”
“......”
The moment our feet touched the platform.
“Haaaah...”
“Hoo.”
People collapsed onto the ground.
Alive.
The instant everyone felt it, tension drained from the air, relief spreading thick through the group.
I tilted my head back, staring at the ceiling, gasping.
When I lowered it, only a single strand of silk remained.
I swallowed hard.
That was too close.
[Oh, what a thrilling twist in the middle of such a gripping exploration, my friend!]
Right. A friend who fronted me a hundred million won can say whatever he likes.
And finally, even among the group, bits of joking conversation began to pass back and forth.
“When that exit showed up, I thought we were dead.”
“Hahaha!”
“Good thing we made it down, yeah!”
The faint distance between the Baekilmong people and the Disaster Agency agents seemed to shrink.
A strange solidarity had formed.
[A classic psychological phenomenon. Different in mechanism, but you could compare it to the suspension bridge effect!]
Fine.
Whatever works.
Seemed like, even once outside, we’d be able to face each other without hostility.
“When we get out, let’s do a wrap-up party. Government folks like ox-bone stew, right? Or maybe Korean beef?”
“Oh man, I’d die for that, citizen.”
“Agent, please...”
“Bet even old Mr. Stick-in-the-Mud here could down a full kilo, so don’t act shy.”
“...?!”
“Can I come too?”
“Of course.”
They wouldn’t actually hold a party, but a few lighthearted exchanges to shake off tension passed around.
♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪
“It’s coming.”
The signal returned — another train approaching.
So if there are passengers in the station, it comes more often?
Not sure about the frequency. But as long as this could take us out, good enough.
Whether it would get us clear of the nightmare altogether — that remained to be seen.
“If there were people inside the last train, then maybe it connects us to something else, supernaturally. Right, Podo?”
“...That’s right.”
Anything would be better than staying in the heart of an Extermination-grade nightmare....
“And we should be ready if the people on the train aren’t... normal.”
“Obviously.”
If there were passengers in a nightmare train, odds were high they’d be contaminated humans.
The train is arriving.
The agents swapped gear for anti-personnel combat. The Baekilmong staff adjusted their items — some of which probably couldn’t even be used here, but they made a show of it anyway.
Not that I, penniless, had any room to talk.
I stifled a sigh, looking at the pollock charm trembling in my sweat-slicked hand.
It was nearly destroyed.
One hundred million for five lives wasn’t a bad deal, but the fact it was one-use still stung....
Thunk.
“......”
I looked down.
The persimmon-wood carving, overgrown with mold, crumbled unrecognizably on the floor.
The last silk thread dangling from my hand had snapped.
The charm was completely—
Destroyed.
“......”
“Wait. Roe Deer, that...”
It couldn’t have broken just from weight.
It was an item.
Which meant—
That it had been blocking misfortune right up until the very moment it snapped.
“......”
I stiffly turned toward the platform stairs.
...Fog was spilling down from the concourse, flooding through the passageway.
Ah.
Of course. The concourse was part of the station.
If we were counted as passengers in the station...
If the station knew we were here...
Then the forest of the concourse knew us too.
Knew us enough to pursue.
Until now, the charm had shielded our presence from it.
But now—
“Back—”
The next instant.
Fog poured down the stairs like a flood, smothering the platform.
“...!!”
The platform expanded unnaturally within the fog, and tree-shadows emerged.
Trees bearing hanged bodies.
...And nooses waiting empty.
—From the notorious suicide forest ■■■, five unidentified male and female corpses were discovered hanging from trees near a subway passage.
—According to witnesses, they had attempted to board a train but gave up, then made an extreme choice. Their last words to each other were reported as....
—Don’t you want to give up, too?
“Evade.”
I ducked, trying to grab the shoulder beside me — but my hand only touched a corpse.
I flung it away, panicked.
“Everyone, to the screen doors!”
Thankfully, voices still reached us.
And faintly through the fog, a trace of blue flame burned, accompanied by the sound of bells.
A presence driving the mist back.
“Here!”
I rushed toward it.
As I drew closer, a silhouette emerged from the fog — Agent Choi, near the screen doors!
Passengers, please maintain etiquette and board safely.
“As soon as the doors open, we—”
Whoosh.
“...Agent?”
Just now.
Just now, Agent Choi was lifted before my eyes, a noose snapping tight around his neck, dragging him upward into a tree.
Dangling.
What?
What just—
Why?
This was supposed to be a luring-type nightmare, wasn’t it? And now we were registered as station users, so there was no need to lure us? Or had the dam burst once the charm broke? Or was it an etiquette violation? Or....
Just now.
He died?
Dead....
“Shit.”
......
Deputy!
I forced my dazed mind to search through the fog, calling for him. He should be nearby, here—
Whoosh.
Another figure snared by a noose, hauled upward.
Gone into the fog.
—Don’t you want to give up, too?
I froze.
...Ah.
The platform was already swallowed, filled with trees and fog.
Could it all have been hallucination? Couldn’t it? Two people couldn’t just die, not like that, so suddenly, so—
But the others—
“Agent Podo!”
Agent Cheongdong.
“Agent!”
Silhouettes coming toward me. Deputy Lee Seonghae, too, raising his hand high — the glow of a star-shaped sticker on his skin faintly cutting the fog.
We were almost at the screen doors.
The open light of the train shone dimly beyond the haze.
“As soon as the doors open, get insi—”
This time.
I saw it.
A noose shot out from the fog, snapping around Cheongdong’s neck, yanking him upward.
Into the fog.
“...!”
I instinctively grabbed his legs. At the same moment, Deputy Lee grabbed his feet.
But it was useless.
Because the noose was on his neck.
With crushing force, it tore free of our grip and rose.
There was only the sound of his neck breaking.
“......”
The screen doors are closing.
I hurled myself toward the train.
My muddled head couldn’t make sense of anything — escape? Was this really escape? Was there nothing left we could do?
Too late already....
...!
And then I saw it.
The glow of the star sticker on Deputy Lee’s hand illuminated a rope dropping from above.
A noose.
One of us two.
No.
I shoved Deputy Lee forward, forcing him through the closing train doors.
At the same time—
—Don’t you want to give up, too?
A noose caught my neck and pulled tight.
Whoosh.
Pain.
Pressure.
Choking.
....
Death.
Darkness.
***
Would you like to continue from here?
***
“Huff—!”
“Agent!”
Ryu Jaegwan’s eyes snapped open. His breath came in ragged gasps, his throat seared with pain and crushing tightness, the shock reverberating through his chest and body.
He tried to raise a hand to his neck, but someone stopped him.
“Calm down. You’re at Headquarters!”
...Headquarters?
His vision refocused in a flash.
A modern room marked with talisman ropes and charms. A bed. The smell of disinfectant and rice...
The Contamination Ward of the Agency.
“......”
He let the strength in his hand ease away. The infirmary staff peering down at him sighed in relief and spoke.
A nightmare?
Could that be it? Had he dreamed a nightmare — as a type of supernatural disaster?
Then where did the nightmare start? Could it be that even this place now was still the dream...?
“I told you, don’t use the well as a transfer route! And yet you insisted... everyone who used it has been unconscious for two days straight. You’re the first to wake up, Agent Cheongdong.”
“......”
“But I’m sure it was Agent Choi who told you to—”
“Wait— kh, wait.”
Ryu Jaegwan pressed urgently.
“The well... it actually worked?”
“Of course it did! Suddenly people just appeared here in the main building — with a supernatural disaster, and Baekilmong staff all mixed in! Total chaos, I tell you.”
“......”
“And since you were all unconscious, and it seemed deliberate, everyone agreed you’d been caught in some kind of abnormal supernatural phenomenon for sure... Agent?”
Agent Cheongdong grasped his throat again.
...My voice isn’t coming out right.
And a strange pressure, like something clinging to him.
Like a noose.
“Are you all right? You’ll undergo a full examination soon, but...”
“Yes.”
The strange ache, the trembling in his body. Some uncanny aftereffects seemed to linger....
But he was alive.
Not dead.
That realization sank in.
Segwang Special City.
A place unrecognized, erased from reality — and the reason they had been able to reach it—
It was a dream.
Through the well, they had entered Segwang Special City inside a dream.
And then—
“Ah, the others are waking up now. But... looks like one Baekilmong employee still hasn’t regained consciousness.”
Just one.
The one they had left behind.